


Life Keeps Going

by rayemars



Series: Close to Home [3]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: 2019-2020 NHL Season, Curses, Domestic Fluff, Implied/Referenced Sex, Multi, References to the 2020 Pandemic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:42:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27885448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rayemars/pseuds/rayemars
Summary: Eleven years they've known each other, and sometimes it still startles Jeff how fast Parse can read him.The one where Parse, Swoops, and Scraps have been together for a while.
Relationships: Kent "Parse" Parson/Jeff "Swoops" Troy/Scraps (Check Please!)
Series: Close to Home [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1655362
Comments: 16
Kudos: 41





	1. Pet Accounts

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally a one-off idea I wrote after seeing that [Charlie McAvoy made his puppy an Instagram account](https://twitter.com/LO_BostonBruins/status/1286292777576411145) that was supposed to just stay on Tumblr. But then I wrote the second one, had to cut what will become the third out when it became seven pages of increasingly nested parentheses, and realized that I was putting enough personality- and world-building into these that they probably needed to be up here.
> 
> So, eh, none of this series has been linear so far anyway, what's a little more.
> 
> Note that these first two chapters explicitly reference the current pandemic and how it impacts both the guys' triad relationship and careers in the NHL, so if you're reading fic to escape from that for a while, heads up.  
> ~~~  
>   
>   
> 

McAvoy put his puppy on insta," Jeff says, looking up from his phone.

"I know," Parse replies without looking away from where he's checking the line of diatomaceous earth running along their kitchen's parameters. "Purrs's already following him."

"You remember he's a defenseman, right?" Jeff asks, eyebrow raised.

Parse shrugs. "Not the dog's fault."

Jeff shakes his head but also shrugs a shoulder. "Yeah, alright."

He flips over to the Insta account he made for Scrappy's dog a while ago, after it was clear Scrappy can't be bothered to create any more social media accounts beyond his Twitter and the Snapchat he mainly shares with Jeff and Parse. "I'll add it to Belka's."

Parse snorts and straightens, using the edge of the counter to pull himself up. "You keep doin' that, somebody's gonna figure out you're runnin' it."

"Nah." They probably would, but Jeff shrugs the thought off out of stubbornness. "Nobody'll think that."

"Dude," Parse drawls, leaning against the counter, "you're really tryin' to tell me you didn't start the whole thing so if you and Scraps suddenly get married, everybody'll be like 'Well shit, guess it was pretty obvious in hindsight'?"

Jeff drops the phone slightly and stares at him. Parse just raises an eyebrow.

. . . Eleven years they've known each other, and sometimes it still startles Jeff how fast Parse can read him.

He made the account as a joke. Parse was using Purrs' insta to follow more NHL pets the last few years, and Jeff had multiple pictures of Belka and Scrappy on his phone anyway, so it felt like a good--if in hindsight, convoluted--way to chirp Parse.

At first, Jeff was careful to only post pictures of Belka in his yard when visible social stuff was happening in the background, like a barbecue or croquet or something. Maybe somebody would still think it was weird to have photos of a teammate's dog, but Jeff rarely posted to it; and he was only followed by Purrs, a handful of random dog people on Insta, and some hardcore hockey fans who'd found the account despite Jeff never tagging Scrappy's name. And anyway, Jeff hadn't linked any of his own stuff to it. He figured it was ultimately a small risk. It'd be fine.

And then 2020 happened, and Jeff massively re-shifted a lot of his priorities.

After the league suspended games in March, Jeff packed his stuff and got out of the U.S. in forty-eight hours, and moved back to his summer house in the exurbs of Toronto. Scrappy came with him, after the other man had a couple long conversations with his mother and several other family members about the risks of returning home versus staying in North America.

But Jeff couldn't convince Parse to join them. Parse went back to his hometown in upstate New York instead, to be with his own family.

Jeff spent the first week telling himself that it was fine, that everything was fine, Parse was hours away from New York City and he'd be fine, and okay several members of Parse's family worked in the prisons in the area and those things were fucking infection vectors and even more of Parse's relatives were the science-denial kind of conservatives, but Parse wasn't really that far away in the grand scheme of things. Jeff and Scrappy could get to him like five hours, if they sped.

Then Canada closed the border.

When the league resumed the season, Jeff opted-in to play 78.6583% solely to be able to see Parse again. In the interim, he started giving zero fucks about updating Belka's account with pictures of her inside his house.

It wasn't a secret that Scrappy crashed with him while the league figured out when and how and where to restart, even if Jeff and Scraps didn't go out of their way to talk about it. On the surface, Jeff was hosting a close friend who didn't want to risk international travel while the remaining 2019-20 season was in limbo.

Below the surface, Jeff finally talked to his family about the reality of his relationship with Scrappy and Parse, since his closest friends already knew.

Jeff's parents knew he was gay since he was a teenager, and they'd known he was dating Parse for the past few years. So the only real trouble was trying to explain that no, he hadn't broken up with Parse to date Scrappy, and no, he wasn't cheating on Parse: he was dating both of them, and they were both fully aware and okay with it, and also Parse and Scrappy were dating each other at the same time they were with him.

It was, hands down without a doubt, The Most Awkward Conversation Of His Life. Jeff powered through it by telling himself that at least he was hitting that milestone when he was thirty-one. It was all up from here.

It took his parents a little while to fully understand and come around to the idea. But they liked Parse, and they liked Scrappy, and they wanted Jeff to be happy. Plus, global pandemic. Some things just weren't worth getting upset about anymore.

Jeff also told his agent that he was gay and he wasn't interested in talking about it unless he got married, just to make sure the man was reliable and to get that groundwork started.

Scrappy's been keeping an eye on the growing anti-LGBT attitude sweeping through Ukraine and Eastern Europe for the past couple years. Jeff doesn't know everything that Scrappy talked about during the longest phone conversation the man had with his mom and half-sister; but after they got to Jeff's summer home, Scrappy started quietly looking into getting Canadian citizenship.

That one _is_ more of a secret. Parse knows of course, but Scrappy isn't talking about it to anyone else except his North American agent.

". . . I mighta thought about it," Jeff says.

"Uh-huh," Parse says dryly.

Jeff exhales and hooks one of the barstools away from the kitchen island, and slumps onto it. "I just want a backup," he says. "You know? If he runs into any roadblocks with the citizenship. If that happens, fine, we'll do it this way."

"Dude," Parse repeats, seriously this time.

He comes over and sits down next to Jeff. "You know I'm cool with this, yeah? Both of you should know it's cool. Do whatever legal bullshit it takes," Parse tells him honestly. "It doesn't change things between us. I know you guys love me."

Jeff lets out a long breath, and pulls him into a hug.

"Yeah," he agrees, because he knows Parse knows that, but he still worried a little.

Parse has come lightyears from his old tendency to avoid getting too close to anyone out of a fear of being abandoned; but Jeff still tries to avoid making him feel like he's facing that risk. He was worried.

Parse pats him on the back. "It's cool, Swoops. I mean, kinda a low-key chaotic way to out us all," he adds with a half-grin, "but that tracks for you."

Jeff snorts and shakes him slightly. Parse just shrugs. "Just sayin'. You really only do this shit at a hundred-fifty percent."

"Ass," he snickers, knuckling Parse in the bicep before dropping his arm. "It shouldn't get all of us."

Parse gives him a dubious look. "I think sellin' me your house and continuing to live in it is gonna raise some eyebrows, Swoops. Especially if you guys get hitched."

"Uuuuugh," Jeff mutters, because he's still trying to figure out a good surface explanation for that one.

Jeff's resigned himself to the fact that he'll probably be spending a good chunk of the rest of his life in Las Vegas, because Parse is dead-set on becoming one of those athletes who spend their whole career playing for a single team before remaining in the city post-retirement and continuing to be part of the community.

He and Jeff talked before about Parse buying the house that Jeff built for all of them after his retired. Jeff'll eventually need to offload an asset he won't use once he returns to Canada to manage his family's land, and Parse will need an established home when he transitions into the Aces' front office as a scout or video coach or whatever he eventually decides to do. But like a lot of other things, the pandemic massively increased Jeff's sense of urgency to get it done.

When the league started sending unofficial notices that it was definitely going to finish the 2019-20 season somehow, Parse returned to Vegas to begin re-conditioning. He opted to stay at Jeff's more isolated house rather than return to his own condo building, since Parse already had his own set of keys and codes and gate/garage door openers anyway.

For the first three weeks, Jeff kept getting increasingly exasperated texts about the silverfish, ant, and squirrel infestations Parse was fighting: Jeff didn't want to force anybody to risk going out to clean the place while he was gone, and the house sat dormant for a couple months as a result. The neighborhood HOA'd escalated from sending him catty emails about his grass being too long to actually calling him about it--Jeff pretended all the emails'd gone into his spam--before Parse got there and started cutting it again.

The shrubs are still a wreck, though. Parse is planning to rip out the whole front yard and convert it to xenoscaping, and then pull the 'dumb hockey player' stereotype and earnestly explain how he just really wants to do his part to help Las Vegas conserve water when the HOA tries to fine him for it. Jeff can't wait for that showdown. 

By the end of May, when the border'd been closed for over two months, Parse put his condo up for sale and Jeff sold him the house. It was supposed to be a simple, discreet business transaction; but then one of the goddamn local tabloid blogs found out somehow. Jeff had to spend a week reassuring the Aces' front office and fans that he was still committed to Vegas and had no plans to retire or request a trade.

"Uuuuuuuugh," Jeff mutters again, dropping his head onto the counter. "I'll figure somethin' out."

"I'm just gonna tell people you sold me the place, then finally got back and realized you didn't have anywhere to go. And I felt sorry for ya and let you have the guest room," Parse says with a casual shrug. "Might get weird in a couple years, but just keep whining about how every place in Vegas is ugly as hell and it should fly."

Jeff snorts. "Somehow I don't think that's gonna work, Parse."

"Says the man who can't sit through an HGTV show for ten minutes. Go on Zillow and find me another house here you'd tolerate," Parse dares. "It'll work."

In the laundry room off the kitchen, a door opens. A couple seconds later, Belka comes trotting in from the backyard with Scrappy behind her, flapping his shirt to cool off.

Parse slides off his stool and goes to intercept the dog before she can shove her nose into the diatomaceous earth running along the counters. Parse's managed to kill off the silverfish and drive out the squirrels in the attic, but he and the ants are still in an ongoing war.

"No, mutt, you know better," Parse tells Belka, grabbing her collar and steering her away from the particles. It's food-grade and supposedly safe for animals and humans, but they still try to keep Belka and Purrs from eating it.

"Bruins' McAvoy got a puppy," Jeff tells Scrappy. "He made Otto an insta account, so I'm gonna follow it with Belka's."

"Is he cute?" Scrappy asks, still flapping his shirt as he comes over.

"Yep," Jeff answers, unlocking his phone again. Instagram's still open, so he just holds it out for Scrappy.

"For a dog," Parse qualifies.

"All dogs are cute," Scrappy says absently, scrolling through the handful of pictures. He looks a little red from the heat, so Jeff goes over to the fridge to get him a glass of ice water.

"One dog is cute," Parse replies, ruffling Belka's ears. "All other dogs are dogs."

"Exactly," Scrappy says. "Cute."

Parse snorts and shoos Belka into the living room. When Jeff comes back with the water, Scrappy takes it with a thanks and asks, "I just hit follow, right? This is her account?"

"Yup, go for it," Jeff tells him. Scrappy does.


	2. NHL 20-21 Season: Deception Games Become An Aces Fine

After HR tells everybody which hotel the Aces'll be at in the Edmonton bubble, the third thing Parse does is call said hotel and ask about the bandwidth capacity for gaming.

Though he has to go to Jeff's office upstairs to do it. --Well, technically it's Parse's office now, since this is Parse's house now; but Jeff hasn't moved any of his stuff out.

After Parse bought their home and moved in, he reorganized the office: all of Jeff's hockey and family business stuff is now on one side. Parse lined his own filing cabinets and trophy cases along most of the other side, and put up a few empty bookshelves that Scrappy's been intermittently filling since he and Jeff returned to Vegas.

It's one of the many home projects Parse tackled during quarantine, since he's got a habit of using manual labor to process things he's uncomfortable thinking about. Jeff's phone has a months-long picture roll of all the rearranging Parse did once he got his condo sold and had to figure out how to fit all his stuff into their house.

When Parse texted a picture of the extra bookshelves he'd bought and was assembling in the office, Jeff facetimed him and pointed out, "You know there's like, five bookcases in my parents' house they're not really using, right? I coulda just mailed you some."

"They gonna be made of marble too?" Parse asked dryly.

Jeff made a face at the phone. Parse just raised an eyebrow and pretended he wasn't smirking.

It wasn't _that_ good a chirp. By the time Jeff was building their home, his maternal grandparents had passed away; and since Jeff knew his parents needed to get their house cleared out to sell it, Jeff told them to ship him whatever they or other relatives didn't want. His house was going to be about five times larger than his condo, he had room.

Which is how Jeff wound up furnishing his main bedroom with the battered dresser he's had all his life--complete with the old Maple Leafs and Raptors stickers he put on it back in elementary school, which somehow still haven't peeled off even after two-plus decades and like five moves--and some of his favorite landscape photographs, and also a marble-topped vanity, his grandparents' old bed--complete with an extremely tall carved headboard that'd look right in place at a old-fashioned English manor house--and a matching daybed that he shoved into the corner because he didn't know what else to do with it. Jeff mainly uses it to hold clean laundry until he feels like folding it, which basically means all his casual clothes live there permanently.

Jeff didn't really think about it at the time. He grew up in a family where furniture and dishware naturally passed down from his great-grandparents to his grandparents to his parents over time; until his little brother was born, Jeff just always assumed he'd inherit it after them. That was just how things went.

So Jeff never thought about it until he fully moved into his new house, and invited Parse and Scrappy over for a private housewarming before he did the official party.

Parse walked into Jeff's main bedroom upstairs, laughed so hard he had to hang onto the doorframe to hold himself up, and has since proceeded to chirp Jeff for his incoherent interior design and for being so lazy that he refuses to buy new household goods--not Parse's exact words, but Jeff knows that's what he means by "This old money bullshit, Jesus Christ dude"--for what Jeff's assuming is gonna be the rest of his life.

He's semi-made his peace, mostly because he knows Parse's own taste in interior decoration is terrible. If Jeff's aesthetic is incoherent, Parse's trends toward the soullessness of interior design magazine photospreads.

("No, it looks like a grown-ass adult's place," Parse informed him, when Jeff came over to his condo after Parse'd had a professional designer redecorate and Jeff couldn't get two feet past the door before he had to start dragging Parse.

Parse gave him a pointed look. "Not like a college student just dumped all his secondhand shit into his new 500K condo," which was an exaggeration of how expensive this place was but not by much. Jeff never would've moved here if Parse weren't already living in the building; his parents assumed Jeff was going through some early-twenties hipster phase that made a loft full of concrete and exposed ductwork temporarily appealing.

"You mispronounced 'soulless,'" Jeff replied pleasantly.

Parse narrowed his eyes, because Jeff knew him well enough to know _that_ one would get under his skin. "The door's right that way, Troy."

"How will I ever find it through all the Pier 1 kitsch," Jeff deadpanned, and Parse told him to get out.

Jeff told him to make him, and was abruptly reminded that Parse **did** have fighting lessons from a marine and **could** , in fact, take him down and then strong-arm him toward the door. Jeff liked to tell himself he could've gotten out of the hold if he weren't laughing so hard, but that was probably a lie.

"Jesus," Parse said, letting go and rolling his eyes once they were at the door. "I can't kick you out when you're laughin' like a maniac, the neighbors'll gossip."

"My clever plan worked!" Jeff cackled, because he had to save _some_ face here.

"Sure, Swoops," Parse replied dryly. "Keep tellin' yourself that."

The condo got better after Parse adopted Purrs, because then Parse put in one of those see-through cat tunnels running along all the walls. Jeff once freaked himself out by going into the bathroom to piss and then looking at the mirror afterward and seeing Purrs just sitting in the tunnel behind him, _staring_ ; but at least now the condo looked like a place Parse actually lived in, instead of a carefully designed set-piece he just occupied between road trips.)

Still, for all the chirping Parse gives him about his house of hand-me-downs, Jeff's bought new stuff before.

The living room couch he and Scrappy are currently on is new. Jeff bought it after he fucked up his knee a few years ago, since he wanted something with a side-sectional so he could prop his bad leg up while watching TV without having to twist his neck or upper body sideways to see the screen.

And he had to buy almost all new stuff when he was putting together Scrappy and Parse's bedroom/the room Jeff still can't call a "dungeon" with a straight face in his own head, never mind out loud. Putting that bedroom together was a process that required a tremendous amount of incognito browser windows, the purchase of enough kneeling pillows that it looks like Jeff robbed a gardening store, and a conversation with a dominatrix he occasionally works with about tensile strengths and recommended bed frames for the new restraints Jeff'd bought. 

The only things in there that he'd already owned are the towels, and some of the blankets and sheets. Jeff still can't really explain why he felt so strongly about that, but it's important to him that when he's taking care of Parse or Scrappy after a scene or a punishment, that the washcloths and towels he uses have time and history in them. That, like the blankets and sheets he puts out for sleeping afterward, they show familiarity and investment.

It feels important that the place where Kent and Dimitri are frequently at their most physically and emotionally vulnerable with Jeff contains things that've been in his life for a long time, that are part of his family history, because Kent and Dimitri are loved and part of his family too.

Even Parse didn't chirp Jeff for that one, although Jeff knows it's a pretty sappy explanation for why he gets that one of the hand towels is fraying on the sides but it's fine, it's still good.

Anyway, Parse has to go to the upstairs office to make the call since the den has crummy cell reception, but Jeff can hear him. He puts his face in his hands, and then pulls out his phone and texts _Tell me when you hung up_

Then he drops the phone beside him and slumps exaggeratedly into the sofa. Scrappy looks up from his Switch and asks, "What's up?"

"Parse's callin' the hotel about gaming bandwidth," Jeff tells him grimly.

He knows Scrappy probably didn't hear it over the TV. Scraps took an ugly elbow to the head from a Blues player last season, and his hearing on the left has never been the same since. It isn't enough to significantly impair his game; but guys on the Aces have learned to yell a little harder when they're on the ice with him. Jeff and Parse've adjusted to speaking louder at home if they're on Scrappy's left, or they're farther away in the house.

Scrappy frowns at him for a couple moments, and then figures the problem.

He shrugs in a 'what did you expect' way and goes back to Animal Crossing, because he is a bad ally when it comes to Parse's gaming preferences. Jeff sighs dramatically and slumps deeper into the sofa, making Scrappy snort and poke him in the thigh with a foot.

A couple minutes later, Parse falls quiet upstairs before texting _Done_

Jeff doesn't bother pausing the Game of Thrones episode of he's quasi-watching. He fell behind while he and Scraps were quarantining at Jeff's summer home in Toronto's exurbs, half because Scrappy doesn't care much for long, plot-heavy TV series and half because for several months Jeff rarely had the mental energy to sit through an episode, not while Parse was stuck on the other side of the closed border. By this point, he's mostly powering through the final season because he has to justify having spent so much of his life on the previous ones.

Jeff just slings around on the couch and yells at the stairs, "You can't do the fuckin' thing, Parse!"

A couple moments later, Parse comes down just far enough to be visible before folding his arms on the banister with a grin. "You wanna stop me, show up and play, Troy."

"Goddammit," Jeff mutters, rubbing a hand over his face while Scrappy chuckles unhelpfully.

The problem with Parse's gaming preferences is that he pours an incredible amount of mental and emotional energy into building and maintaining camaraderie among the team and coaches every season, and he compensates for it by spending his downtime playing games designed to actively foster aggression and dishonesty while straining relationships.

During their early years on the Aces, it was stuff like Uno and Mario Kart, or bluffing games like Resistance. As they got older and younger guys started coming onto the team, it mostly became video games: Parse is still pretty fond of Deceit, but it's an old enough game now that he can only wrangle guys into a sporadic rounds.

Parse comes down the rest of the way, still smirking, and joins them on the couch. He drops down right next to Jeff, picking up Scrappy's legs to do it before setting them back down on his lap. Purrs arrives soon after, skirting around where Scrappy's dog is snoozing on the carpet before jumping up and stretching half across Scrappy's legs and half over Parse's lap.

Scrappy resettles more comfortably as Parse starts absently rubbing the side of Purrs' face. Jeff shakes his head, but drapes his arm across Parse's shoulders.

He and Scrappy have both noticed how physically affectionate Parse is since they returned. Not just in a sex way, although they've had plenty of that since Jeff and Scrappy finally got back to Vegas a couple weeks ago. Parse just wants to be physically close to them as much as he can, even for completely mundane stuff.

It makes cooking more of a challenge sometimes, but Jeff's gotten used to it. It's something Parse clearly needs from them right now.

Jeff and Scrappy at least had each other during the long season break. But Parse went back to his hometown and stayed at his parents' house, until the club unofficially confirmed that there was eventually going to be a restart. And then he returned to Vegas and was completely alone in a large empty house until June, when phase 2 became official and Jeff and Scrappy drove back to Vegas.

That was a long time to be touch-starved.

Especially since the three of them don't have much time to make up for it. Not when they're getting shipped off to the bubble in late July to spend 24/7 living in the middle of a bunch of other players and club employees and league officials. So Jeff's a-okay with giving as much physical connection as he possibly can to Parse and Scrappy before then.

He stretches his legs out on the side-sectional of the couch, settling a little heavier against Parse, and tries to focus on the last ten minutes of the episode.

It's no big deal if Parse brings his gaming laptop to the bubble. He'll probably manage to talk a group of guys into playing Deceit for a week or two before everybody gets bored with it; and he'll definitely find out what game Tater's currently playing and rile the hell out of him in there. But that's fine.

Parse's stress levels make him unbearable during playoffs at the best of times, and Jeff's mildly terrified how the whole bubble/global pandemic situation is going to exacerbate it. If this'll help him blow off steam, okay.

Besides, Parse'll probably focus on recruiting guys from other teams who aren't as familiar with him off the ice, since everybody on the Aces knows how dangerous he is in deception games. Barring Parse snipering Tater ten times too many in the latest shoot-em-up until Tater threatens a fistfight, Jeff doesn't see what can go wrong.

*

Then somebody tells Parse about Among Us.

*

And by "somebody" Jeff means his own flesh and blood--his freaking chaos agent of a little brother, Sean--sold out Jeff's sanity by linking Parse to a Twitch streamer popularizing the game.

After Parse buys it, Jeff calls Sean and tells him he's going to find a literal bag of coal and give it to him for Christmas. Sean just laughs at him and says he gave Jeff a copy on Steam and told Parse he did it, so he better learn how to play.

Jeff hangs up on him, which isn't the most mature response but Sean has no idea what he's unleashed.  
  
  
Jeff, fortunately, **does** know, so he's a lot better off than the call-ups that Parse cons into playing with him by claiming that it'll help foster team bonding virtually, since phase 2 only lets a few guys at a time physically practice together.

Someone probably should've warned the prospects and the kids who've been pulled over from Juniors, but eh. Everybody else on the team learned about the non-media side of Parse the hard way; they'll survive too.

*

The worst part of Among Us is how it's like somebody just straight-up made it for Parse.

The maps and tasks are easy for him to memorize. The attention to detail and to other people's actions and tells is something he actively focuses on being great at. And the years have only improved Parse's ability to be persuasive, even while lying his ass off. Add in the ability to joyfully play people against each other, and it's like he's been handed the human equivalent of catnip.

If Jeff's being honest, he's impressed. Even knowing how much Parse likes deception games, he didn't predict how hard he'd go in for this one.

Unfortunately, that means Jeff has to cancel his plan to let Sean hoist himself on his own petard by playing with Parse, because some things you just can't do to family even if they kinda deserve it.

That afternoon he and Parse are in the living room, with Parse playing on his laptop while Jeff's sprawled out on the longer length of the couch, doggedly forcing himself to finish watching the last couple episodes of GoT.

"Seriously, you could just stop," Parse points out, eyebrow raised even as he stays focused on his laptop.

"That's quitter talk," Jeff replies, like he's not theatrically flopped across the couch to best maximize his body language's ability to convey his deep, deep regret about his life choices right now.

"Uh-huh," Parse drawls, a desert void of any sympathy for Jeff's self-inflicted media mistakes. Jeff sighs wearily.

He's already helped Scrappy cut up all the ingredients for the cucumber soup they're having for dinner, once it's sat in the fridge long enough to chill. Jeff offered to help him slice the radishes for the salad too, but Scrappy said he wanted to do it.

Jeff didn't push and left him to it. Scrappy had another long conversation with his North American agent this morning about his progress on getting Canadian citizenship; it's going well, but the mental impact of symbolically turning his back on Ukraine and becoming an ex-pat is something Scrappy's still struggling with.

So when he offered to make dinner tonight less than thirty minutes after getting off that call, and then wanted to go out to a grocery store after their scheduled practice time for fresh dill and parsley instead of going back home and using a personal shopper, Jeff and Parse went along with it without disagreement.

They both know Scrappy uses cooking to help mentally settle himself. It isn't that he's a big cook on his own; but the way they eventually divvied up aftercare tasks made it into a habit.

If Jeff and Dimitri do a full, planned-out scene with Kent, they both take care of him and each other immediately after, with routines for cleaning him up and getting washed off that've become first nature. But after that, they separate for a little while: Jeff likes to take care of any lotion or massages or bandaging that Kent needs afterward, to help fully ground himself back into his regular headspace.

But tending to lingering aches or bruises once Kent's no longer getting off on the pain makes Dimitri feel a little guilty, even when he knows he hasn't done anything wrong or unwanted. So he goes out of their bedroom and settles his own head by making something for the three of them to eat.

Jeff used to check on him more frequently when they first started that pattern, since he was nervous about making Dimitri feel alone or exiled. But now, he's better at gauging Dimitri's needs.

If they've done something physically and emotionally intense enough that Kent needs an epsom salt bath afterward, Jeff will get that prepped and sit with Kent for a while, washing his hair, before checking in with Dimitri in the kitchen until Kent's done with his soak. But most of the time, Jeff knows he can finish up with Kent and stay on the bed with him until Kent dozes off, and that during that time Dimitri is doing okay. He's happy to have Jeff near once Jeff comes into the kitchen and washes off the lotion and starts helping with whatever Dimitri's putting together for their snack; but he doesn't feel neglected or lonely while Jeff's in the other room, taking care of Kent. They've figured out routines that work for them.

So if Scrappy wants to spend half an hour slicing a few bundles of radishes super-thin with one of the cutting knives instead of using the mandoline slicer or conscripting Jeff and Parse to help, okay. Jeff trusts that Scrappy's doing what works best for him right now. If he needs to talk it out with Jeff or the both of them later, he will.

Granted, that means Jeff doesn't have an excuse to kill off a half hour of this episode by leaving it on in the background as he chops more vegetables. But he's the one doing this to himself, so he'll suck it up.  
  
  
Five minutes later, Jeff's checking his email and watching Parse play as an imposter this round, while the episode continues running on the TV.

Two-something minutes after that, Parse's set up enough innocent people to be picked off by the rest of the group that Jeff feels morally obligated to do something. He texts Sean _You gotta stop third impostering and boot Parse out_

 _Stop narcing._ Sean replies. The typing bubble appears and disappears haltingly for a while before he adds _Parse is good. He defended me when Xue was lying._

 _Yeah because he likes you_ Jeff points out. _He'll kill another imposter for that, you're in a literal "you will be the last to die" situation_

 _Stop narcing._ Sean repeats.

Jeff rolls his eyes and thumbs out of his messages. Some thanks he got.

A minute later, though, Sean hits the emergency button and then fingers Parse as the imposter, writing something about marinading and that he saw it on the camera when Parse killed the orange guy with the hamster.

"Bullshit!" Parse retorts as he types. "The cams weren't even on, he couldn't've--" and then he pauses.

A long moment later, Parse stops typing and twists around to eye Jeff narrowly. Jeff raises a questioning eyebrow.

"You fuckin' traitor," Parse replies, because yeah Jeff knew he was gonna see straight through that.

"I dunno what you're talkin' about," Jeff answers innocently, because knowing that Parse was going to immediately read him doesn't mean he has to make it easy.

"You know damn well--" and then Parse realizes Jeff's just pulling his attention away from the meeting countdown, causing him to look more sus as he fails to defend himself. He resumes typing with a " _Dick_."

Jeff grins. "Literal bros before--" wait, no. Completing that line is definitely going to result in a temporary sex drought.

Too late. "I fuckin' **dare** you finish that," Parse drawls, holding up a middle finger.

"You should probably focus on defending yourself," Jeff suggests helpfully. Parse's response is French and extremely rude.

*

Jeff manages to fend off getting dragged under the rising Among Us wave for a couple weeks by repeatedly pointing out the actual true fact that he's not a fan of deception games.

That's partly because trying to root out a traitor--or worse, being one--is stressful, not fun, and an extra source of stress is _abso **lute** ly_ the last thing Jeff needs in his life during 2020: Hell Year. But mostly he just doesn't like these kinds of games because they really screw with his fortune charm.

Especially if they're online. Parse's set up a Discord channel so guys playing Among Us can use voice chat instead of communicating solely via the in-game text, which works great for Parse as a low-grade charmer but makes Jeff's skin crawl.

Literally. Well, metaphorically, it's not bad to the level of body horror, but also kind of literally in the sense of how bad extended sessions make him itch.

Jeff visited an incantor several years back to make sure there wasn't something wrong with his charm, since being friends with Parse meant enough exposure to deception games that Jeff recognized the pattern. She told him it was normal: Jeff's fortune charm is powerful enough that it subtly influences his life circumstances for his benefit in multiple ways, and a major part of that is the way he's blessed with extremely good thin-slice perception.

Jeff's ability to subconsciously determine whether somebody is good or bad news for him with minimal interaction prevents dangerous or untrustworthy people from getting a foothold into his life. At the very least, if he can't avoid working with them, it keeps him fully reminded of what they are.

Fortune charms are an old, old form of blessing. They've been around for far longer than the ability to define their intrabody aspects with terminology like "thin-slicing." Some of the more intangible, extrabody aspects still don't have scientific definitions yet; the closest current descriptions come from incantors writing about the intersectionality of magic with race and class privilege.

All of which means if Jeff plays a game where friends and family actively lie to him, it makes his charm go haywire in a misguided effort to protect him.

Betrayal by family, a trusted friend, or a lover is one of the most dangerous kinds of bad luck there is. So when Jeff starts subconsciously reading signals of deception in somebody that close to him, his fortune charm freaks the fuck out because it doesn't register the difference between a deception game with artificial stakes and Parse lying to Jeff's face with the intent to cause him harm.

It's been worse since Jeff got a cranial ward early last November, because now the ward triggers whenever Parse starts actively being charming in order to deceive people and win. And then that exacerbates his fortune charm, causing some kind of hellish feedback loop that means Jeff has never made it more than two rounds in any given deception game since November 2019.

And that's in face-to-face games, where Jeff can at least potentially sort the liar from the honest players. A game like Among Us, where he's only got aural impressions and no visuals to help him make a better decision, makes Jeff want to take a hot shower after ten minutes.

The incantor, unfortunately, told him that was normal too. Having a fourth-level fortune charm gives Jeff a lot of protection, but it's still rooted into his skin, and therefore based in physicality. It literally can't work as well if he can't at least see the person talking to him, and it works best when he can touch them too.

There's apparently a heated and long-running debate in incantation circles on whether refusing to apply high-level fortune charms to blind or Deaf people is ableism or if it's part of a moral obligation not to cause harm, with a sub-debate on whether charms should only be inked after the blind or Deaf person is an adult and makes the choice theirselves, versus whether it's more beneficial to do it at a guardian's request when the person is young, so that the charm will have more time to learn and adapt to what the person needs in order to be fortunate in life.

Although, most of Jeff's info on that argument comes from the books and articles that his parents started researching after his little brother was diagnosed on the autism spectrum. And that collection's biased, since his parents were looking for confirmation that they hadn't harmed Sean by getting him charmed at infancy the same way Jeff was.

It wasn't like they could do anything about it now. Once you got a fortune charm, you can't let it lapse, or you risk having all the bad luck that's been held back rebound in on you.

Most incantors won't even re-ink a charm that hasn't been retouched in over twenty-five years. At that point, the charm isn't just a bad luck magnet--it starts festering into a curse.

(Jeff and Sean's parents set both of them up with two bank accounts as soon as they were born: one for their college fund, and one with a principle that's untouchable until they're sixty barring a few extremely specific emergencies. The second fund exists solely to accrue enough interest that he and Sean will have the money to re-ink their charms at least every twenty years, even though fifteen is the longest recommended delay.

Jeff would be lying if he claimed the 2009 financial crisis wasn't a semi-conscious part of his decision to go professional with hockey. His family came through a lot better than many people, and the credit union hosting their charm funds stayed solvent; but the thought of potentially becoming a walking active curse was pretty fucking nightmare-inducing.

He's spent a lot of 2020 double-checking that account's balance and making sure that the bank is still functioning. Jeff isn't yet at the point of _seriously_ considering investing in a floor safe and maybe like, a couple gold bars, but he's also not **not** considering it. He's had even more nightmares these past several months about that near-fatal doppelgänger curse he was hit with late last year.)

But even knowing that his reading material is biased, Jeff's still inclined to believe that if a family wants to ink their child with a fortune charm, they should be able to do it regardless of any physical handicaps the kid might have. And they should be able to do it no matter how young the child is, as long as they've got the resources to afford the long-term maintenance.

He can't deny that the incantors arguing for personal agency have good points, especially considering the two major recessions in the past twelve years. But still, the more time a fortune charm has to adapt to a person and learn their strengths and talents, the better off the person will be in the long run.

His little brother's a good example. Their parents have always been happy to supply Sean with puzzle games to help him build up his zig-zag thinking: but by the time he was starting to ask for online multiplayer games, Jeff'd already gone through the NHL draft and all the intrusive publicity surrounding both it and his initial problems with the Oilers.

Mom and Dad never forgot that mess.

And once Jeff became a professional athlete, massive amounts of his personal information started being widely available for public consumption: his birth date, hometown, weight, being left-handed, yearly injuries, surgeries, and recovery times--all those regular, invasive stats he's gotten used to after a couple decades.

And that's just the official releases. There's plenty more about him that fans actively compile from the interviews and video spots he does for the Aces, and from anything he's said casually on social media: his favorite foods, his hobbies, his Vegas neighborhood, his preferred non-endorsement clothing brands. Somebody even used several photos to work out that the watch he wears since getting it from his granddad is a 1976 Rolex Oysterdale, which is a weird piece of internet detective-work that Jeff only knows about because Parse sent him the tumblr link.

It all meant that their parents reacted by getting over-paranoid about Sean's privacy and protecting him from parasocial relationships.

So they let Sean buy multiplayer games, but they made sure he sat through a _lot_ of lectures about internet safety first. And they won't let him get a webcam or a microphone. Not even when he built his first computer.

When Sean started streaming as a hobby, he turned the restrictions into part of his brand by speed-running puzzle games without commentary or personal visuals. He doesn't make enough from it to qualify as a part-time job yet, but he's got a good handful of subscribers and a solid circle of friends in the field, and he's happy.

Jeff knows that Sean plays Among Us with friends, including games where some of the players are streaming on their end. So once Parse starts his inevitable attempts to hassle Jeff into playing by claiming that this is somehow _also_ part of Jeff's leadership group responsibilities--the "leadership responsibilities" list being about eight yards long by now and at least 70% bullshit in Jeff's unbiased opinion--he calls Sean to ask how he deals with his fortune charm acting up during it.

Sean just shrugs and says it isn't that different from regular life: most people who aren't close family or friends feel suspect to him. Either they think he's a burden because he has special needs, or they're mainly being nice to him because they're thinking about the Troys' wealth and network, or they're only interested him because his brother is a famous hockey player.

Which, ouch.

Jeff's left in silence, absorbing all the implications of **that** , but Sean just goes on like it's normal and says that he only plays the original version, with text communications.

"I don't care what they write," Sean explains, cracking open the soda he was getting from the fridge when Jeff called. "I watch what they do. They can write whatever, but if they do a task too short or long, they're the imposter."

"Ah," Jeff says, still trying to mentally come back from the idea of a life where most strangers and casual acquaintances he met read as untrustworthy.

Sean shrugs again and props his phone on the counter as he pours the soda into a glass. "The text messages are okay. If you're gonna do voice, it's prolly harder."

"Yep," Jeff confirms. "...So how do you know when someone's doing a task too short? Or long?"

Sean gives him a look like Jeff's just asked him how to learn to skate. "You play the game and memorize it," he replies, and alright, Jeff walked into that one.

"I'm playin' with Xue and Cherry and Josh's crew in--" Sean looks over at the microwave clock "--twenty-three minutes. Log on and I'll ask if you can play too."

"Are any of them streaming?" Jeff asks, because getting proxy-murdered by a bunch of his little brother's friends is one thing, but doing it on public record is another.

"Josh's group," Sean answers. "But they do their own voiceovers, so it won't come out until that's edited."

Jeff's still dithering when Sean points out rather reasonably that, "You're not gonna get better if you don't play. Kent'll beat you every time."

". . . Yeah, alright," Jeff replies, because there was no arguing that. "Text me if they say okay."

"Alright," Sean says. "Anything else?"

"Nah, that's it," Jeff replies. "Talk to ya later."

Several minutes later, Sean texts that his friends are okay playing with a noob. Jeff writes back _I know what that means brat_ and then _Okay see you then_  
  
  
After Jeff's yet again retrieved the password to his Steam account and put in the room code that Sean texted, he's writing down the damn password on a post-it so he doesn't have to go through the emailing-a-link mess again when Sean calls him.

"Is your name seriously 'Swoops14'?" he asks in disbelief.

"I only use this for work!" Jeff says defensively, because sometimes PR 'strongly encourages' them to do a stream for the Aces' Twitch account to generate content during multi-day breaks between games. Jeff can't bring himself to refuse when it's the ones for charities.

"You're lame," Sean informs him, before hanging up because the game's starting. Jeff blows a raspberry at the phone like a mature adult and pushes it away to focus.  
  
  
During the first game, he's too busy despairing over the fact that he's joined a game where literally everyone else playing is five steps above him to figure out how to change the name displayed over his little pale blue dude.

When the second game's starting, a tenth player in a white spacesuit shows up in the room. The name above them is "KP".

Jeff eyes his laptop screen narrowly.

Then he goes over to the office door and leans out it to bellow, " **Parse**!!"

From downstairs, Parse calls cheerfully, "Sean said to say hi!"

"Fuck _me_ ," Jeff whines under his breath, hanging his head. He never should've introduced Sean and Parse. He should've realized the velociraptor-level coordinated dragging he'd be bringing on himself a decade later.

He pushes away from the doorframe and goes back to his laptop, only to find the game's already started. His blue dude is standing alone in the cafeteria by the table where every round starts.

As Jeff's getting back into his seat, a white spacesuit sprints into view from the left, murders him, and runs off again.

Jeff settles into his chair with a deep, saw-this-coming sigh.

"You're a petty motherfucker, Kent Parson!" he shouts at the doorway. Parse just laughs intentionally loud enough that Jeff can hear it even up here.  
  
  
Three days later, Parse links a recorded video of that game in his insta with _You can really tell Swoops and I were playing with pros. I mean you can tell Swoops is._ and tags Jeff in the post, because Jeff has chosen to be in love with the worst person in the world.

"You're the worst," Jeff informs him, as he's watching the video on their way to practice. Scrappy isn't with them this time, since the coach wanted him to come in with the third-line group later in the afternoon.

Josh and his group are pretty funny, but also Jeff died in literally every single round he played during that session, including the one where he wound up as an imposter. It's a running joke for the streamers by the middle of the video: at the start of each round, Josh is calling "Don't kill Cyan first!" as the crewmate/imposter screen loads.

Parse just grins as he stops at a red light. "Everybody's gotta start somewhere, Swoops."

"The worst," Jeff repeats sullenly, because half the team's been dragging him in his mentions ever since Parse's post went up. Parse just snickers.

*

After they arrive in the bubble, Jeff dumps his mask on the desk and his luggage on one of the beds, and pulls open the curtains to look out at the weird chainlink tunnel connecting the other two NHL hotels to this one. A few blocks away, a guard opens one of the gates and then starts blocking traffic so that a couple guys can cross the street to the next part of the tunnel.

Somebody knocks on his door. Jeff goes over and lets Parse in.

"You hear about the Tim Horton's truck?" Parse asks.

Jeff shakes his head as he drifts back to the window. He still can't make out who the two guys heading for their hotel are, at least not enough to pin down which team they're with. Maybe they're front office staff?

"It's free," Parse tells him, shutting the door before taking off his mask. "Isi said make sure you got plenty of time if you go there, the line's always like twelve deep."

Jeff snorts. "I could just buy my own coffee, Parse," he points out.

"Social doesn't get paid what you do," Parse replies, which Jeff has to admit is a good point. "'Sides, paychecks are over now that the regular season's done. Gotta take what we can, right?"

Jeff snorts harder, because they both know the players' union has put together a bigger winnings pool than normal for guys who opted into the playoffs this years.

Parse just grins at him as he comes over. Jeff shakes his head before folding his arms, looking back out the window. Another guy is waiting at a gate for a guard to stop traffic again so he can return to his hotel.

"You ever feel like a whole city has a curse on you?" Jeff asks, because there's some extreme irony in the fact that he's back in friggin' Edmonton yet again for this, the absolute strangest Stanley Cup finals in history.

"Nah," Parse says, rubbing a thumb briefly over the back of Jeff's neck and the ward inked at the base of his skull, before resting his arm on Jeff's shoulders. "This city voluntarily decided to fuck up its streets so we have a bubble for you to play in. That's like the opposite of a curse."

Jeff chuckles despite himself.

Parse looks out at the chainlink tunnel with a wry raised eyebrow. "Gotta say, pretty fuckin' grateful the GM bribed the league to get us in the place connected to the rink." He jerks his chin at the streets. "That'd get old fast."

"No kiddin'," Jeff agrees.

Parse tilts his head slightly and looks at him for a moment, before letting out a long breath and shaking his head. "Still don't think we should be here?"

"They didn't hold fuckin' playoffs during the last pandemic," Jeff mutters.

"The league didn't have thirty-four teams and hundreds of players with corporate sponsors breathin' down their neck to get playing again," Parse says matter-of-factly. "Money always wins."

Jeff makes an aggravated noise in the back of his throat.

Parse pats him on the back. "Tell yourself you're supplyin' a needed distraction and donate your winnings to a hospital," he says sympathetically. "C'mon, Dallas is here. Help me find Segs so I can harass him to get Among Us."

"Subtle, Parser," Jeff drawls; but he turns away from the window.

He chose to come here so he could be with Parse and Scrappy again. There's no point in dwelling anymore on how much PPE and tests are being used up just to make the playoffs happen. If he'd refused to come here and play, they'd still be going on. Somebody else would've just taken his place.

And it's not like Jeff doesn't want to win a second Cup. He isn't getting any younger: his knee is gonna force him to retire within a few years, before he starts really building up long-term damage by continuing to play on it.

And there's no guarantee that the Aces will take a playoff berth again before then. Or that Scrappy won't get traded or fail to be re-signed before next the next time they reach postseason. Jeff could get traded himself; he doesn't have a full no-move clause like Parse.

There's no guarantee that this isn't his last chance to lift the Cup with Scrappy and Parse.

He was never going to refuse to return for the playoffs. But it would've been nice to be playing them under conditions that aren't so blatantly fucked up.

Jeff huffs out a breath and goes to get his mask. "I thought he said he wasn't into video games much anymore."

"Bullshit," Parse says with complete certainty, hooking his mask on. "He knows he's a shit liar, so he's tryin' to take the coward's way out."

Jeff snickers as he double-checks that his keycard is in his wallet. "--Wait, why am I _helping_ you find more victims?"

"'Cause you're a good boyfriend," Parse answers. "And if we spread disfunction and lies among guys on **other** teams, that'll help _us_ when finals start."

Jeff stares at him.

Parse's eyes crinkle up enough that Jeff knows behind his mask, he's grinning wide enough to show teeth.

"...I have nightmares about you becoming a GM," Jeff tells him, making Parse laugh out loud as he opens the door.

*

During the first week of the bubble, when they're still in the pre-playoffs exhibition games, Jeff pulls off the greatest four games of Among Us he's ever achieved.

In the first three, he convinces the rest of the group to eject Parse early each time, even in the game where Jeff knew Parse wasn't an imposter because the med bay scanner thing wouldn't let Jeff use it while Parse was standing on it. It's definitely bad game play on account of how Jeff's actively reducing the number of crewmates and making the real imposters' jobs easier, but it's worth it.

"I'm so fuckin' proud of you, you imposter son of a bitch," Parse drawls as the votes start getting cast.

"I couldn't scan while Swoops was on it, he's not an imposter," Scrappy repeats pragmatically.

"So it's both of you," Parse replies.

"Scraps doesn't know how to close doors when he's the imposter," Ty--one of the prospects who's been called up to the bubble's expanded roster--points out, which is true. "Or how to lie."

"Hey," Scrappy says, since that's not entirely true.

It's easy to tell when Scrappy's innocent, because he gets incredibly aggressive about defending himself when accused. But he also got better at replicating that fire when he actually **is** the imposter, after he learned the game will make the pet alien dog he bought sit sadly at the site of his death if he's ejected.

That was the motivation he needed. It's kind of the same reason why Scrappy's still playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons even though Jeff fell off it once he filled he museum and Parse never really got into except as a way to visit their islands: Scraps lost an islander once when he didn't talk to them enough, and now he feels bad if he doesn't check in with them at least every other day.

"I don't think it's him," one of the defensemen argues. "You can't be imposter three times in a row, yeah?"

"No, it's possible," Ty tells Dash, and Jeff keeps his face straight as he silently thanks the kid for helping him nail Parse's coffin. "I've seen streams where a guy was it four times in a row."

"So basically we've got nothing to lose," Segs replies, audibly grinning despite the loud background noise of a couple guys playing ping-pong in the Stars' lounge. They've told him to move away from the table already, but he said all the other outlets are taken.

"I'm not doin' any of my tasks," Parse informs them as the votes conclude, but then he's cut off by Ty's "Dash, what the fuck!"

"Bullshit you've seen streams where a guy was it four times," he replies. Dash's little icon under Ty's name is the only vote not for either Parse or skipping, minus Parse and Segs' votes for Jeff. "I bet it's you."

Jeff's starting to get that feeling too, and makes a mental note to hang out with Dash for the next round.

"I hope you all lose," Parse announces loudly as he's ejected.

"See, it's shit like that that makes you--" Jeff starts, only to have Parse call, "Fuck off, Troy!" as everyone mutes for the next round. On the other side of the Aces' lounge, Parse holds up a middle finger at him for good measure.

Jeff snickers, ignores it just to aggravate Parse more, and chases off after Dash.

Several seconds later, Tater's invisible ghost says exasperatedly, "Mute **again** , Swoops."

Jeff huffs and goes back into the Discord server to do it.

Half the reason he's pretty sure one of the imposters is Ty is because the kid's the one who convinced Tater to join them today, somehow. So when Tater was the first to die this game and Ty immediately springboarded from that discovery to accuse Parse, it was pretty telling. Ty's got enough fondness for chaos both on the ice and as an apparent general life goal that Jeff can absolutely see him pulling that move.

Especially since, if Jeff didn't have proof that Parse was innocent, he would've fallen for it.

Ever since Parse and Jack started trying to resume and renegotiate their friendship a year ago, Parse and Tater have developed a truce off the ice; but they still aren't particularly friendly. Parse could make the exact same disparaging chirp to both Segs and Tater, but it'd still have a different edge in Tater's case.

The fact that Parse is steadily adding more psychological terror-level chirping into his play style as age and accumulated injuries have begun slowing his speed really hasn't helped. The last game the Aces played against Providence before the regular season shut down, Parse targeted a Falcs rookie hard enough that Tater finally took a high-sticking penalty after getting more and more fed up with Parse taunting the kid. Parse had the assist on Jeff's goal during that power play.

Jeff's not sure what bribe or blackmail Ty used to get Tater into the game today, but if the kid did it as part of a long con to frame Parse as an imposter, Jeff's impressed at the audacity. He'll do well in Vegas.

The **real** pièce de résistance of Jeff's run is the fourth game, though. That's when he ends up as one of the imposters.

Jeff knows from experience that his time is extremely limited before he fucks up and gets caught, leaving Tater to do all the impostering work. So he just runs through the ship until he finds Parse alone doing wires, kills him, and then immediately self-reports.

"Jesus," Jeff says once he's unmuted, "I know I've been sus of Parse all day, but this is like some real Westworld, 'These violent delights have violent ends' shit."

On the other side of the Aces' lounge, Parse stares at Jeff over his laptop and slowly mouths 'You motherfucker.'

Jeff keeps his face straight and says, "I found him in Navigation. Who was around him last?"

Parse holds up two middle fingers. Jeff keeps his gaze focused on his screen.

"I saw Tater head that way," Ty offers.

"I went left!" Tater says, outraged. "Nav is right!"

"No, I definitely saw you head to Nav," Ty replies, because maybe he's just got it out for Tater, or for the Falcs, or for the Eastern Conference?

"Lie!" Tater insists. "I'm in steam room!"

"Tater, man, I know Parse is a shit but you gotta be less sloppy about your kills," Jeff tells him sympathetically, before voting for Tater.

"What the fuck," Tater says in disbelief.

Ty votes a second later. Scrappy follows, and Jeff's about 98.3% confident that he just voted for Tater because of bias. Jeff's going to hurt his spleen holding in all this laughter.

"Do we have any actual proof?" Dash asks, being the voice of reason, curse him.

"Like nine years' worth," Segs says dryly. "It's Tater."

Tater bursts out cussing in Russian as Segs casts his vote. Dash says, "Alright, I'm skipping. I don't trust any of you anymore."

At least, Jeff assumed Tater was cussing him out in Russian. But then Scrappy twists around on the couch where he was sitting with his back to Jeff and Parse because his poker face is lousy, and eyes Jeff.

Jeff tries to look innocent. He completely fails, on account of his silent laughter and also the fact that Parse is really committed to flipping him off for this whole meeting.

Scrappy sighs and turns back around, so Jeff's probably dying next round. Still worth it.

Tater votes for Jeff and gets ejected. When the round starts, Scrappy doesn't move away from the emergency button as everyone else heads out.

Worth it.

Jeff manages to stave off death for a couple minutes by manufacturing crises, shutting off the oxygen and setting off the reactor, until finally the next time he passes through the cafeteria Scrappy's gone. Jeff goes up and kills Dash while he's doing wires, since he figures he should at least try to win, and then vents. He's waiting for the other room to clear so he can come out when somebody reports Dash's body.

"It's Swoops," Scrappy says immediately, before Segs can even say where he found Dash. "Tater betrayed him in the last meeting."

Tater breaks the rules and unmutes to growl something in Russian that Jeff assumes is a very unflattering opinion of himself. Scrappy says something equally rude-sounding back as the voting opens up.

"This isn't how you play," Ty says in exasperation, voting. "Jesus fuck, guys."

Jeff finally lets himself just crack up out loud. His expulsion and defeat quickly follows.

"All right, I'm out," he says over Discord instead of joining the next game. "I'm never gonna top that, see you guys later."

Jeff logs out to a chorus of boos and chirps, and then shuts his laptop and leaves the lounge. Parse watches him go.

"Stop flirting in public," Scrappy says almost inaudibly as Jeff passes by him; and Jeff busts out laughing again so hard that he almost fumbles his laptop. Scrappy just shakes his head and swats him in the thigh, pushing him toward the door.

Ingrained conditioning to never reveal the location of his fortune charm to anyone who isn't family or a trusted incantor is the only thing that's kept Jeff from scratching his increasingly viciously itching skin over the last hour. The second he gets into his hotel room, he rips off his shirt, tangling his mask in the collar as he does, before chucking them both on the table and slumping against the wall in relief as he finally starts scratching his armpit and side.

Jeff has never been so grateful for the league's relaxed dress code here in the bubble. If he'd had to try and struggle out of a suit jacket and dress shirt to deal with this itch he probably would've just ripped through the damn things instead.

A few seconds later, there's a sharp knock on his door. Jeff makes a guttural aggravated noise but flails his free arm out to open it.

"Stop that," Parse tells him as he comes in, pushing the door shut with his foot as he grabs Jeff's forearm. Jeff swears reflexively, but lets Parse pull his hand away.

Parse pushes his other arm up to check whether Jeff's done any damage in the like three uninterrupted seconds he had to scratch, which is unnecessary because Jeff _does_ actually know how to deal with this charm. --Except, yeah, okay, he's never forced himself to sit through a deception game for this long before.

Still worth it.

Kinda. Jeff keeps forgetting that scratching one part of his skin hard for a few seconds somehow causes twenty other spots to abruptly become even more itchy. Parse is still holding onto his forearm for a reason.

"Sheesh," Parse says, taking off his mask one-handed as he inspects the long pink and white lines now running from Jeff's upper left arm down to his hip. "You gotta start filing down your nails before we play, Swoops. Least you didn't break the skin."

"I know what I'm doin'," Jeff says, mature and not indignant at all.

"Says the guy who lost in two rounds," Parse drawls, and Jeff makes a face at him.

"Leggo," he says, because seriously he's going to kick a hole in the wall if he can't deal with all this itching pronto. "I gotta shower."

"Do it after," Parse says, which makes no sense. "I told the guys I was gonna make sure you didn't claw your skin off and cuss you out for being a dick, so I only got like--ten minutes, max."

"Huh?" Jeff says, because that only partly makes sense. The fact that Jeff has a fortune charm isn't a secret in the Aces' locker room, although most of the team doesn't know how powerful it is, unless somebody who's considering a charm himself specifically asks Jeff about his experience. And most of the guys know that's why he's only semi-reliable for one or two games at a time.

But then Parse pushes him back against the wall and gets down on his knees, letting go of Jeff's arm to open his fly.

Jeff's brain catches up.

"Jesus," he snickers, unconsciously going back to scratching his side. "Parse, I'm real concerned that gettin' killed is a turn-on."

Parse whacks his arm harder than Jeff feels he really deserves for that one. "Use your fucking hands _better_ , Troy."

"Oh my **god** ," Jeff says, before pushing a hand into Kent's hair and getting a solid grip. He pulls once, just hard enough to make Kent's eyes flutter shut briefly as he shifts on his knees. "You're such a fuckin' little shit."

Kent just holds his gaze and grins widely, showing teeth, as he shoves Jeff's jeans down his hips. "Better be quiet," he smirks, "Calgary's lounge is just across the hall, right?"

" _\--Oh my god_ ," Jeff hisses, before almost clapping his other palm over his mouth as Kent gets his hands on his cock and balls. He barely remembers in time that he hasn't washed his hands yet, and presses his forearm against his mouth instead.

Kent just snickers like the goddamn little bastard he is, because Jeff loves the worst person in the world and has no regrets about it. He grips Kent's hair a little tighter, dragging his head forward until Kent shuts up and takes Jeff's cock into his mouth.  
  
  
Afterward, Jeff has a semi-deep bite mark on the top of his forearm and Parse is still brushing his teeth at the sink when Scrappy texts them both: _Svyeta sent dinner_.

"Good a reason to bail as any," Parse mumbles when Jeff reads him the text. He spits out the toothpaste and asks more clearly, "You still need a shower?"

Part of Jeff is tempted to tell Parse he's not _that_ good at sucking cock, but the rest of Jeff reminds himself that that's not entirely true. "I'm all right."

Parse just arches an eyebrow at him in the mirror. Jeff makes another face and then goes to find his hoodie, so he can make it over to Scrappy's room without flashing the new sex mark on his arm to this hotel that's crammed to the gills with fellow NHL players and staff.  
  
  
Scrappy's unpacking the food when they arrive: a pale soup and a side salad of sliced tomatoes and cucumbers.

Back in January, Scrappy's sister Svetlana took a temporary translating job in Vancouver. After the shutdowns started, she hung onto the job by taking on a lot of extra work translating medical papers from Russia, France, and Canada. But when all the playoff teams moved into Edmonton, Svetlana drove over to stay with a friend of a friend, working out of their house and sending Scrappy meals.

She's done it for four days in a row now, since they first arrived in town. And it's always enough to feed multiple people. Like, not a whole lot of guys; but clearly more than one person.

Jeff's hoping it's a silent olive branch indicating that, however Scrappy's family initially felt about him being bisexual and in a gay relationship, Svetlana wants to keep him in her life. It feels like an awful lot of effort to go to otherwise for a half-brother. Even one in the playoffs.

Especially since she's basically smuggling the food into the hotel by having a Ukrainian-Canadian guy bring it over every day through the Uber Eats drop-off.

"I can't believe you're gettin' away with this," Parse says as he sets up the room's table with the plates and silverware the hotel's loaned Scrappy.

"He drives an Uber," Scrappy replies. "It's an Uber drop-off."

Parse gives him a 'come on dude, weak logic' look. Jeff points out, "I'm still pretty sure this is breaking a rule."

Scrappy just shrugs.

He pointed out the first day that he knew his sister and the guy who was maybe a friend, maybe a current fling--Scrappy seemed pretty confident that Roman was too short for Svetlana to actively date--were healthy, which was more than he could say for any restaurant staff or gig workers who were currently clinging to their own jobs. So anything Svetlana made and Roman delivered was probably safer than an actual UberEats order.

Jeff could find nothing there to argue with. And he wasn't going to turn down free, homemade food for however long it lasted.

Especially since he normally only eats sirloin on roadies, and there's no way that's gonna be sustainable here in the bubble. Not if Jeff counts the entire playoffs as a roadie, which it technically is even for the Oilers since they don't get to go home either. That's just too much sirloin.

So he figures it's better to test out breaking his superstition now, when they're just doing exhibition games. If he **does** run into any bad streaks, he'll have time to adjust before the first round of the playoffs officially starts.

The soup's a sour green borscht full of chicken and sorrel. Scrappy looks blissful the whole time he eats it, even when he's informing Jeff and Parse that they don't properly appreciate it because they have bad tastebuds.

"You can't say that for _every_ thing, Scraps," Parse tells him.

"You're American," Scrappy replies with finality. Parse rolls his eyes while Jeff cackles through a mouthful of salad.  
  
  
Later, they leave the TV on semi-loud, playing some travel channel, as Kent sucks Dimitri off slow and easy the way he likes on one of the beds.

Jeff sits propped against the headboard, with Dimitri settled against his chest and between his legs. He keeps an arm wrapped around Dimitri's chest and a hand pressed gently over his mouth, kissing the side of his face and murmuring about how good Dima's doing at being quiet, as Dimitri shivers and breathes hard and holds tight to Kent's shoulders as Kent works him over.

Afterward, they change the channel to watch part of the Canucks' and Jets' exhibition game--mostly because Parse wants to check it out, and Scrappy's too relaxed to disagree, and Jeff can't bring himself to bother.

Never mind that they have no idea who they're going to be playing in the first round until the seeding and qualifying rounds are finished next week. It's playoffs, and not even murder and sex can distract Kent Parson for long from scoping the enemy. If the league hadn't banned guys from sitting in on other games, he'd probably be over in the arena right now.

Oh, who's Jeff kidding. Not probably, definitely.  
  
  
They have to leave about an hour later. There's still a curfew; and the weird panopticon nature of the bubble really ups the stakes. When Jeff and Parse could open Scrappy's door and end up face-to-face with another team's player or a league videographer or a referee, it adds some extra incentive to be in their own rooms when they're supposed to be. The amount of privacy in this hotel is in the negative.

Jeff kisses Scrappy goodnight and heads out into the hallway, toward the elevators. Parse leaves a few moments later, and calls a casual goodbye to Jeff as he makes for his own room on the other side of the floor.

Jeff reflects, not for the first time even that day, that he's really glad he got his fortune charm re-inked last summer. This year, and these playoffs circumstances, probably would've leeched all the remaining luck out of it if he'd waited longer.

*

After that glorious success, Jeff bows out of the Among Us crew unless they're playing hide and seek. Sometimes you just have to leave while you're on top.

*

And then at the start of August, Fall Guys comes out.

The number of people playing Among Us plummets, exacerbated by four teams' worth of guys getting kicked to the curb when the qualifying rounds end. Literally; after Edmonton's eliminated, Jeff's coming back from the Tim Horton's truck when he sees the Oilers' gear stacked up in front of the hotel.

It's probably just waiting for the team bus to make it through the traffic gauntlet, but still. That's sure a visual.

Parse just shrugs when Jeff tells him about it later. "That's not gonna be us."  
  
  
Parse spends the better part of a week bitching about Fall Guys once it gets clear it's become a wide-spread craze. "Fuckin' battle royales."

"You could just play it," Jeff points out, knowing full well what Parse's reply is going to be. "It'd make Ty happy. And can't you like, screw with guys by grabbing them or something?"

"No," Parse says flatly. "And that strategy's only if you already decided to lose."

Jeff rolls his eyes and eats another forkful of the beef and mushroom cabbage rolls that Scrappy's sister sent today.

Years back, Parse got into The Culling because it was the favorite game of a guy who was traded onto the Aces mid-season and Parse wanted to build rapport with him. He wound up taking to the game for real, doing the same things he did with Among Us: watching streams for protips, memorizing the map, and taking it seriously enough that he got pretty good at it, at least for a hobbyist who already had an extremely time-consuming career.

But then Fortnite came out, and The Culling died off. To this day, Parse--like the grudge-holding little shit he was and still kinda is--refuses to play Fortnite or other battle royale-style games. There's a single lone exception that can convince him to join one.

"Pretty sure Tater's into it," Jeff remarks, cutting another bite of cabbage roll.

"I'm not _that_ fuckin' petty," Parse sulks, which is such an egregious lie said in such a petty tone that Jeff ends up laughing so hard he doubles over. Parse gives him an unamused look and kicks him in the foot.

Scrappy just pushes his chair back from the cramped table and keeps eating his own cabbage rolls, pretending that he doesn't know either of them despite the fact they're all sitting in Scraps' own hotel room.


End file.
